Media Advisory: Grand Opening of UB's Clinical and Translational Research Center in Downtown Buffalo to be held Thursday

What: The grand opening ceremony of the University at Buffalo's new Clinical and Translational Research Center (CTRC), a biomedical research facility in downtown Buffalo, designed to narrow the gap between discovery and cure.

When: Sept. 20, 2012.

2 - 3 p.m. -- Grand opening ceremony

Ceremony will be followed by a walk-through of the CTRC and a keynote address by pioneering genomics scientist J. Craig Venter, who will be conferred a SUNY honorary doctorate.

Where: In the fifth floor atrium of the Gates Vascular Institute/CTRC building at Goodrich and Ellicott Streets on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. The building is jointly owned and operated by UB and Kaleida Health, with UB occupying the building's top floors.

Why: UB's Clinical and Translational Research Center is a unique 170,000-square-foot research facility that allows UB's physician scientists to do their research upstairs in the CTRC and to see patients and work with clinicians downstairs in Kaleida Health's Gates Vascular Institute.

The CTRC was designed and constructed with significant input from UB's researchers so as to maximize this kind of collaboration in order to catalyze medical breakthroughs and innovative treatments. UB is recruiting more world-class researchers to work within the CTRC; the facility is part of UB's medical school, which is relocating to downtown Buffalo in 2016 under the UB 2020 plan and with the support of Gov. Cuomo's NYSUNY 2020 legislation. A Biosciences Incubator within UB's CTRC will assist UB researchers with the commercialization of new medical therapies and technologies.

Speakers will include:

-- Timothy F. Murphy, MD, director of UB's CTRC and SUNY Distinguished Professor, UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

-- Michael E. Cain, MD, UB vice president for health sciences and dean of the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

-- Jeremy M. Jacobs, chairman, UB Council

-- Satish K. Tripathi, PhD, UB President

-- Sam Hoyt, Regional President, Empire State Development Corp.

-- Crystal D. Peoples-Stokes, NYS Assembly

-- Mark Grisanti, NYS Senate

-- Byron W. Brown, mayor, City of Buffalo

More information about UB's CTRC and a photo of the building is available here: http://www.buffalo.edu/news/13159 and here: http://www.buffalo.edu/UBT/features/CTRC.php.